The Stream

The Center for Marriage Policy

Friday, February 13, 2015

A variety of assumptions worthy of additional comment were propagated for public dissemination through a number of Super Bowl commercials.

In one anti-bullying spot, a social engineer instructs the one to be mentally reconditioned to run or fight like a girl.

Upon compliance, the unenlightened male is subjected to Pavlovian denunciation (akin to what one would receive in a prisoner of war camp) over how he has insulted his sister.

Rather than an instructive analysis of preconceived notions, the lesson to be learned from the public service announcement is that, irrespective of whether you comply with or ignore orders issued by a women, you are going to be reamed a new one anyway.

For if the ambushed lad had not been told to run like a girl, he would have not likely perpetrated the offending action.

If producers of this broadcast spot are so outraged about thought crimes regarding gender, it would be interesting to hear their perspective regarding the commercial featuring perennial pottymouth Sarah Silverman.

In that one, she says after delivering a baby to the parents, “Sorry, it's a boy.”

Would such blatant denigration of the female gender be permitted in a similar commercial?

Lastly, what about the Scientology advertisement?

In 2011, Fox rejected a Super Bowl commercial that broadcast the message, “John 3:16, what's that mean?” on the grounds that the message contained too much religious doctrine.

Of course, that is unlike the moral-free content of the constant litany of erectile dysfunction commercials where the term “partner” but never “spouse” is constantly verbalized.

It is certainly instructive that programming executives at NBC had no problem, however, with a commercial for Scientology, which is a cult that believes that human beings are reincarnated space aliens and whose sexfiend founder tried to live aboard a cruise ship in order to elude capture for his assorted crimes.

It is easy to assume that the commercials are a momentary distraction allowing the viewer time for a quick trip to the bathroom or to grab another handful of chips.

However, in those brief 30 second spots, there is a contest underway for minds and at times even souls that is as pitched as any struggle on the gridiron